the client

Positively Wellington Tourism are a not-for-profit Regional Tourism Office in New Zealand and have been working with Hill & Knowlton Sydney to activate their international short break strategy, There’s No Place Like Wellington, in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

the situation

H&K Sydney, together with client Positively Wellington Tourism, developed the concept of ‘WLG’ a two week long (14th – 26th September 2010) pop-up restaurant to raise awareness of Wellington amongst Australians by displaying the city as an ideal short break destination and New Zealand’s ‘culinary capital’. Wellington is the culinary heart of NZ but not very well known in Sydney. We were targeting the young SINKs and DINKs of Sydney’s affluent inner east and inner west. The Surry Hills set that was hanging out on Crown Street and Potts Point. For a small Regional Tourism Office, this was a huge undertaking – so we needed to ensure that the two event was a smash hit on multiple levels.

Today we had the pleasure of hearing John Stanley talk about his experiences as a presenter on 2UE. While the focus of the roundtable was to have a better understanding of how H&K can provide better counsel for media training, I found all of John’s points could easily be translated to social media best practice.

It’s not the first time that I have been fascinated by the similarities between talkback and social media. The #qanda Twitter stream is the perfect example of that well known mix of contributors who are fired-up and passionate about a particular subject and those who love a soapbox for their 15 seconds (or 140 characters) of fame. Social networks pull together all the elements of the talkback environment – people who want the opportunity to tell their story, a forum to publicly voice comments and replies, community hubs to nurture common areas of interests and polarising opinions to ignite discussion. And it can all happen on your Facebook Page.

March has been all about me and the microphone. I’ve powered through a 5 minute Ignite presentation at Stream Asia, embarrassingly got my karaoke on at the same event (apologies to all involved, in particular Neil Ackland who told me the next day that he could still hear me singing at 2am from his room across the venue) and was lucky enough to do the opening keynote at Frocomm’s New Media Summit just last week.

I was happy to be on the first day so there was at least enough room in between my presentation and the second day keynote from Dan Ilic – I’ve seen Dan present before and he absolutely nails that balance between entertainment and insight. I still refer to many of his key points from the 2009 New Media Summit where he presented on the important distinction between viral video and good content. Check out his YouTube channel for the latest goodness.

I really enjoyed chairing the panel discussion on ethics and Twitter which included great insights from NSW Police’s Tim Archer and the Department of Immigration & Citizenship’s Sandi Logan who obviously have a multitude of stakeholders, policies and challenges to juggle with every piece of content. Cathie McGinn and Thomas Tudehope gave the agency perspective and were able to give some fantastic examples including my favourite example from McGinn (FTW) of how you just can’t please everybody – Interflora UK’s surprise and delight campaign:

Interflora is monitoring Twitter, to find users that it believes might need cheering up. It then contacts them directly to get their postal address and sends a bouquet of flowers as a surprise

The kicker being that some people feel this random act of kindness is violating their personal space. What an age we live in.

Before I link in my presentations, I’d like to thank Ross Monaghan for chairing the event and keeping the Twitter discussions alive and the support from the Twitter back channel including Michelle Prak and Roger Christie who have also followed up with blog posts about the event and Alex White who lived blogged both days one and two for prosperity.

And finally a huge thanks to Glen Frost for yet another outstanding event. Presentations from the event are available here and mine is embedded below.

Welcome to the new media world (I have updated the presentation to get rid of that awful typo but it doesn’t seem to be reflecting in embeds at the moment)

Everyone’s talking community. No, not the hilarious comedy set in a community college; the concept of community as a facilitator of opinions, a mobiliser of action, a collaboration of experience, a junction of advocates and interest seekers alike. The community manager has become the job role du jour for organisations that have embraced social media, particularly those with online customer service functions. There’s a Facebook community managers group of 85 Sydney based member (and growing) where client-side and agency staff discuss the challenges, opportunities, technicalities and nuances of developing and maintaining communities of interest for brands and products. So why all the fuss? How did community become the must-have social media accessory of the season?

Hill & Knowlton are supporting id Day, an initiative launched by Sunnyfield in recognition of International Day of People with Disability held on 3 December.

The day’s main message is whether you have an intellectual disability or not, the things we all have in common are our differences, and it’s worth celebrating what makes us all unique.

This year id Day encourages all Aussies to share with friends, colleagues or even strangers “what makes you unique”. It’s a great conversation starter (I now use it at the beginning of presentations) and it’s so easy to get involved.

Offices can buy a merchandise box or host a morning tea and encourage donations – with the id Day nametags you’ll be surprised what you’ll learn about your fellow colleagues!

Why we’re getting involved

One in five Australians have a disability – that’s nearly 4.3 million people.

People with intellectual disability account for the majority of people aged under 65 years who have unmet demand for accommodation and respite services.

People with intellectual disabilities commonly have difficulty learning, applying knowledge, making decisions, making choices at key life transition points and adjusting to changing circumstances.

57% of people with intellectual disability need help with communication.

Like most charities, Sunnyfield urgently needs to raise awareness and money. Please help us by sharing the id Day story on Facebook or Twitter or donating at http://www.idday.org.au/donate. Visit the website for more ways to get involved.

Spread the word

Want to help? Please tweet or share the following: I support @id_Day by celebrating our differences and unique identity http://bit.ly/idDay2010

Connect with us

Next month H&K will be presenting at Digital Now Australia or DNA://10, a conference in its second year with speakers from other WPP agencies TNS and GroupM and the local team from Google. The conference will be hitting up Sydney and Melbourne with the aim to take some of the hype and hyperbole out of digital and focus on the strategic direction required to achieve real results. With the recent release of TNS’s Digital Life – the most comprehensive study we’ve ever seen on digital lifestyles – it’s a great opportunity to demonstrate how each agency uses insights into consumer behaviours to develop kick-ass strategies across the marketing mix.

As we’ve constructed our presentation to represent integrated communications we’ve realised just how much there is to say on the subject. Unfortunately we don’t have all day. Fortunately I have this blog to explore all of the other avenues that pop up for discussion. Now all I have to do is find the time!

Much has been said about social media and the Australian election, with talk of missed opportunities and a failure to engage. As a social media advocate, I welcome any opportunity to discuss how we can shift from paid to earned media where possible. As a social media marketer, I disagree with a lot of the advice projected at our political parties. As we are more than likely to be going through this entire process sooner than we’d like, I thought I’d outline some of the challenges and opportunities I feel are facing our campaigners (and maybe your business).

On Thursday I spoke at the 3rd annual Local Government Web Network Conference, organised by superhero and pocket rocket Reem Abdelaty. The conference presents an interesting challenge as the audience is a mix of PR, marketing, web development, web design and IT staff with one thing in common – the responsibility of their council’s web presence.

They say if you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In the marketing world this means when a client comes to us with a problem, we assume our discipline has the solution. If we’re humble sometimes we may admit only part of the solution. So who does it best?

As an example let’s look at the question of the virtual hour. Who owns social media – PR/comms? Advertising? Digital creative? Citizen journalists? No one?

Forget ownership by discipline. Social media, just like every other marketing channel, is owned by strategy.

If you’re in PR, don’t buy the top keywords for a Google Adwords campaign and consider SEO ticked. If you’re in advertising don’t assume a few links broadcasted each day equals community management.

I’d like to hand this explanation over to some of my favourite smart cookies. I asked them all these three questions:

1. Why is your niche a must-have component of a marketing strategy?

2. How does your discipline compliment an integrated marketing solution?